Gary Shcarrer: Republicans still soaring

Texas GOP Chairwoman Tina Benkiser welcomed thousands of delegates to open the two-day state convention and reminded them how far the party has come from the days when they would have been swallowed by a hall as massive as the Henry B. Gonzalez Center.

Texas Republicans won 80 percent of all races in which they fielded candidates two years ago, elected six new Republicans to Congress and won 200 local offices previously held by Democrats, she said.

Republicans now hold all 29 state elected offices, nearly a complete turnaround from the early 1980s when the only GOP statewide elected official was then U.S. Sen. John Tower.

Benkiser complained about liberal Democrats who do little but

criticize and try to block “anything and everything Republicans

propose.” And she pushed one of the convention’s prevailing themes: Stop illegal immigration.

Unlike past legal immigration waves that brought people who embraced

traditional American values, she said, immigration now means multiculturalism, hyphenated Americans and loyalties to a foreign flag.